Myths are traditional stories that have endured over a long time. Some of them have to do with events of great importance, such as the founding of a nation. Others tell the stories of great heroes and heroines and their exploits and courage in the face of adversity. Still others are simple tales about otherwise unremarkable people who get into trouble or do some great deed. What are we to make of all these tales, and why do people seem to like to hear them? This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. We will also pay some attention to the way the Greeks and Romans themselves understood their own myths. Are myths subtle codes that contain some universal truth? Are they a window on the deep recesses of a particular culture? Are they a set of blinders that all of us wear, though we do not realize it? Or are they just entertaining stories that people like to tell over and over? This course will investigate these questions through a variety of topics, including the creation of the universe, the relationship between gods and mortals, human nature, religion, the family, sex, love, madness, and death.
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COURSE SCHEDULE
• Week 1: Introduction
Welcome to Greek and Roman Mythology! This first week we’ll introduce the class, paying attention to how the course itself works. We’ll also begin to think about the topic at hand: myth! How can we begin to define "myth"? How does myth work? What have ancient and modern theorists, philosophers, and other thinkers had to say about myth? This week we’ll also begin our foray into Homer’s world, with an eye to how we can best approach epic poetry.
Readings: No texts this week, but it would be a good idea to get started on next week's reading to get ahead of the game.
Video Lectures: 1.1-1.7
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 2: Becoming a Hero
In week 2, we begin our intensive study of myth through Homer’s epic poem, the Odyssey. This core text not only gives us an exciting story to appreciate on its own merits but also offers us a kind of laboratory where we can investigate myth using different theoretical approaches. This week we focus on the young Telemachus’ tour as he begins to come of age; we also accompany his father Odysseus as he journeys homeward after the Trojan War. Along the way, we’ll examine questions of heroism, relationships between gods and mortals, family dynamics, and the Homeric values of hospitality and resourcefulness.
Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 1-8
Video Lectures: 2.1-2.10
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 3: Adventures Out and Back
This week we’ll follow the exciting peregrinations of Odysseus, "man of twists and turns," over sea and land. The hero’s journeys abroad and as he re-enters his homeland are fraught with perils. This portion of the Odyssey features unforgettable monsters and exotic witches; we also follow Odysseus into the Underworld, where he meets shades of comrades and relatives. Here we encounter some of the best-known stories to survive from all of ancient myth.
Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 9-16
Video Lectures: 3.1-3.10
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 4: Identity and Signs
As he makes his way closer and closer to re-taking his place on Ithaca and with his family, a disguised Odysseus must use all his resources to regain his kingdom. We’ll see many examples of reunion as Odysseus carefully begins to reveal his identity to various members of his household—his servants, his dog, his son, and finally, his wife Penelope—while also scheming against those who have usurped his place.
Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 17-24
Video Lectures: 4.1-4.8
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 5: Gods and Humans
We will take a close look at the most authoritative story on the origin of the cosmos from Greek antiquity: Hesiod’s Theogony. Hesiod was generally considered the only poet who could rival Homer. The Theogony, or "birth of the gods," tells of an older order of gods, before Zeus, who were driven by powerful passions—and strange appetites! This poem presents the beginning of the world as a time of fierce struggle and violence as the universe begins to take shape, and order, out of chaos.
Readings: Hesiod, Theogony *(the Works and Days is NOT required for the course)*
Video Lectures: 5.1-5.9
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 6: Ritual and Religion
This week’s readings give us a chance to look closely at Greek religion in its various guises. Myth, of course, forms one important aspect of religion, but so does ritual. How ancient myths and rituals interact teaches us a lot about both of these powerful cultural forms. We will read two of the greatest hymns to Olympian deities that tell up-close-and-personal stories about the gods while providing intricate descriptions of the rituals they like us humans to perform.
Readings: Homeric Hymn to Apollo; Homeric Hymn to Demeter (there are two hymns to each that survive, only the LONGER Hymn to Apollo and the LONGER Hymn to Demeter are required for the course)
Video Lectures: 6.1-6.7
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 7: Justice
What counts as a just action, and what counts as an unjust one? Who gets to decide? These are trickier questions than some will have us think. This unit looks at one of the most famously thorny issues of justice in all of the ancient world. In Aeschylus’ Oresteia—the only surviving example of tragedy in its original trilogy form—we hear the story of Agamemnon’s return home after the Trojan War. Unlike Odysseus’ eventual joyful reunion with his wife and children, this hero is betrayed by those he considered closest to him. This family's cycle of revenge, of which this story is but one episode, carries questions of justice and competing loyalties well beyond Agamemnon’s immediate family, eventually ending up on the Athenian Acropolis itself.
Readings: Aeschylus, Agamemnon; Aeschylus, Eumenides
Video Lectures: 7.1-7.10
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 8: Unstable Selves
This week we encounter two famous tragedies, both set at Thebes, that center on questions of guilt and identity: Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Eurpides’ Bacchae. Oedipus is confident that he can escape the unthinkable fate that was foretold by the Delphic oracle; we watch as he eventually realizes the horror of what he has done. With Odysseus, we saw how a great hero can re-build his identity after struggles, while Oedipus shows us how our identities can dissolve before our very eyes. The myth of Oedipus is one of transgressions—intentional and unintentional—and about the limits of human knowledge. In Euripides’ Bacchae, the identity of gods and mortals is under scrutiny. Here, Dionysus, the god of wine and of tragedy, and also madness, appears as a character on stage. Through the dissolution of Pentheus, we see the terrible consequences that can occur when a god’s divinity is not properly acknowledged.
Readings: Sophocles, Oedipus Rex; Euripides, Bacchae
Video Lectures: 8.1-8.9
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 9: The Roman Hero, Remade
Moving ahead several centuries, we jump into a different part of the Mediterranean to let the Romans give us their take on myth. Although many poets tried to rewrite Homer for their own times, no one succeeded quite like Vergil. His epic poem, the Aeneid, chronicles a powerful re-building of a culture that both identifies with and defines itself against previously told myths. In contrast to the scarcity of information about Homer, we know a great deal about Vergil’s life and historical context, allowing us insight into myth-making in action.
Readings: Vergil, Aeneid, books 1-5
Video Lectures: 9.1-9.10
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
• Week 10: Roman Myth and Ovid's Metamorphoses
Our consideration of Vergil’s tale closes with his trip to the underworld in book 6. Next, we turn to a more playful Roman poet, Ovid, whose genius is apparent in nearly every kind of register. Profound, witty, and satiric all at once, Ovid’s powerful re-tellings of many ancient myths became the versions that are most familiar to us today. Finally, through the lens of the Romans and others who "remythologize," we wrap up the course with a retrospective look at myth.
Readings: Vergil, Aeneid, book 6; Ovid, Metamorphoses, books 3, 12, and 13.
Video Lectures: 10.1-10.9.
Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.
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READINGS
There are no required texts for the course, however, Professor Struck will make reference to the following texts in the lecture:
• Greek Tragedies, Volume 1, David Grene and Richmond Lattimore, trans. (Chicago)
• Greek Tragedies, Volume 3, David Grene and Richmond Lattimore , trans. (Chicago)
• Hesiod, Theogony and Works and Days, M. L. West, trans. (Oxford)
• Homeric Hymns, Sarah Ruden, trans. (Hackett)
• Homer, The Odyssey, Robert Fagles, trans. (Penguin)
• Virgil, The Aeneid, Robert Fitzgerald, trans. (Vintage)
• Ovid, Metamorphoses, David Raeburn, trans. (Penguin)
These translations are a pleasure to work with, whereas many of the translations freely available on the internet are not. If you do not want to purchase them, they should also be available at many libraries. Again, these texts are not required, but they are helpful.

Revisiones

DA

This class is very interesting and I love the structure of it. I love how in depth he goes into the different mythological stories and how they connect to Greek culture and daily life.

BM

Mar 16, 2019

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

I thoroughly enjoyed this course. Greek and Roman Mythology has always been something I was interested in and this class introduced many new ways I could actually look at these myths.

De la lección

Adventures Out and Back

This week we’ll follow the exciting peregrinations of Odysseus, "man of twists and turns," over sea and land. The hero’s journeys abroad and as he re-enters his homeland are fraught with perils. This portion of the Odyssey features unforgettable monsters and exotic witches; we also follow Odysseus into the Underworld, where he meets shades of comrades and relatives. Here we encounter some of the best-known stories to survive from all of ancient myth. Readings: Homer, Odyssey, books 9-16. Video Lectures: 3.1-3.10. Quiz: Complete the quiz by the end of the week.

Impartido por:

Peter Struck

Transcripción

Now we're moving on to books nine through twelve of The Odyssey. Some of the best parts of The Odyssey exist in this arc of the story. A lot of the things that you'll remember about the cyclops, the sirens, all these famous episodes get stuck into Odysseus recounting his own tales. Recall what's happened, we've been on this island of Scheria for some books so Odysseus has slowly carefully pieced himself together. He's got his strength back. He's figured out a way to work himself back into human society but his identity is still a riddle. His host don't know who he is. And only after they've given him overwhelming hospitality do they even bother, or, they, do they even presume to ask his name. And now starting off in book nine, Odysseus is going to start to fill in what that ident, identity's all about. Remember at the close of eight, the direct question for him that came from the king, Alcinous. Now, tell us who you are? And in trying to figure out that question of identity there were several points that, Alcinous made salient. Your name, your lineage and where are you from? What is your name or your parents and what place are you from? Odysseus goes ahead and answers those right at the beginning above nine sets out his own identity straight forwardly for his audience. But then he carries on to fill up the last piece, this is going to be his past. What great things have you done? Oh yes, yes, we need to know those, in order to figure out who it is that you are. So a great Greek heroes identity is gonna be, yes, name, lineage, whether from, and also, a grand and glorious set of adventures in their past, what they've done magnificent things that they've engage in. Odysseus now when he identified himself is also taking over the role of the bard in the story. He's going to become the singer of the tale. It's like Homer hands things over to him and says go ahead Odysseus now you can to have the reins for a while. And then here's Odysseus basically in you know, perfect dactylic hexameter just like a real poet, performing for us his own identity. He gets to take over the story now form nine through twelve with a short breather in book eleven. Now in the parts that we're going to turn to in the coming books keep an eye on this, certain overall structure. They're are a lot of episodes that come fast and furious, and lots of details, lots of adventure to come up, but there is a way that you can organize your reading of it such that you can allocate interest to what the episodes that are most important. They tend to come in threes in book nine, we have a group of three, the adventure with the Ciconians, then the Lotus Eaters, then the Cyclops. In book ten, we have another three, Ilyste, the Lystrigonians and Cerces, then in book eleven a long journey into the underworld. And book twelve another group of three. The Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis, and the cattle of the son. You can see our friends the sirens here. Careful. Watch out if you start to hear their song. It's going to entice you in. So we have in each of these groupings, two short ones and a long one, that first group of three in book nine, the Caconians and the Lotaseaters are both actually very short then the Cyclops is much longer and takes up nearly half the book. In group two we have Ealis the Lystergonians, those are the two short episodes, and then Zyrosy, which is the much longer episode, the more substantial episode in book ten. Book eleven, longer digression in the underworld, same cavings takes over again in book twelve, short, short, long Siren, Sillan and Karyptos, and the cattle of the sun. Watch for several important themes. I'm just going to point out to a couple, there are more that you're going to identify yourself in your own reading look for the idea of temptation. There are pleasures awaiting you, but those pleasures sometimes have a price associated with them. Also, curiosity goes together with temptation to be tempted to grab something also is married in this set of stories with the idea of curiosity and gaining knowledge. Odysseus push and drive is always a sense of my goodness, what is that over there? It could be something amazing, and I've got to spend some time trying to get to know it. Also, look out for Xanea, this idea of treating a guest in a proper way shows up in our stories, oftentimes in a perverted sense, we get examples of how not do Xanea, how not to treat your guest. Watch out for food crimes of all kinds. There are things floating around in these stories, that are being treated like their food, but really shouldn't be eaten and when you see those keep an eye out keep an eye out for them. Lots of shape shifting going to be going on, humans are going to be taking the shapes of animals and strange creatures are going to show up that are kind of human but not quite. Now, throughout this journey Odysseus is constantly trying to find out new things. Most of what happens in his exploration is actually specifically keyed as a search for knowledge. He gets down to the underworld oh sorry, he gets, when he gets over to Searcy, its, its clue, he's, he's clued into the idea that says that actually what you should be doing is finding out an important secret. There's a reason why all these terrible things are happening to you while these wonderful adventures, that you're having and explorations that you're having, are being forced upon you because of something. Go to the Underworld to find out. There's a specific search for knowledge, that's anchored from Circe forward. But really all of the episodes have built into them this kind of temptation toward some unknown thing curiosity pulling the way. Not least behind us we see are sirens. They have this amazing, marvelous song that's going to bring Odysseus to new depths of understanding as we'll see. In order to get yourself a fuller sense of what these episodes are all about take some time to link them into your memory. Get the groups of three straight. There's going to be a quiz that pops up on the next slide run through that quickly to make sure you've got each of the episodes straight in, in your own mind and then we'll carry on with the rest of this lecture. During Odysseus's ventures the further out we go the stranger things get. Near the beginning we have some adventures that seemed pretty much like standard hero stuff. He lands on the, the shores meets the Kikonians. They clobbered them, grabbed their treasure and leave standard kind of a hero pillaging behavior. Then we get to Lotus eaters, they seem roughly like normal people, we can converse with them there's some social interactions back and forth but they do have the strange fixation on a certain kind of food they like to eat the lowes leaves. Strange not sure what's so wonderful about them. They make them feel marvelous. There must be some kind of pharmacological effect. Odysseus as man quite loved this. And Odysseus realizes uh-uh, we've got to go no sense in anchoring ourselves here. For a hero you don't want to hang around and relax. You know, early retirement so you can play golf is not the kind of thing a hero wants to do. Then we get to the cyclops. With the cyclops, things get very strange. We are definitely in the world of strangeness when we arrive there. The approach that Odysseus makes to the cyclops is typical of a kind of approaches we're going to see in these episodes. The shore the, the ship will land on shore, a party of men gets out. They scout the horizon, look for places to go. See signs of life. There might be smoke off in the off in the far reaches, there might be a spring that they want to go to, a food source somewhere and they start to explore. When they do, they make their way up a path, maybe up a hillside. A rocky place, a wooded place. And they get to. Something that's wondrous, and something that's marvelous. In this case, something that's marvelously, marvelously strange and frightening. They arrive at the area of the Cyclops. Looking around to see what they might find and what they mostly find on their way in to this strange clumping of, of, of animals, a clumping of creatures is that there's a lot of things that they're just missing. They're not quite like you and I, these Cyclopses. They're lacking cultivation. They're, they don't know anything about farming. So they don't have the tools and resources to subsist on a grain-based diet. They don't have that settled farming technology. They don't have then also the kind of supplement in their diet that grain would give them. A stable bread that they might have to, to, to eat and to provide them with nutrition. They're going to have to get their nutrition from somewhere else. Watch out. They don't have councils. The Cyclopses don't get together to solve problems, they don't work together to get things done, they don't form alliances. They also don't have homes, they just live in these caves, completely rustic. They're lacking each marker of civilization most prominent among these or at least something that we could really remark on, is the fact that they don't have ships. These Cyclopses don't know how to build ships, and since they don't, they're not going to have contact with the outside world, they're not going to meet lots of people that are different from them which for us, great Greek heroes that we are the traders across the Mediterranean sea. This is a sign of great lack of civilization. Not to be in contact with, network with, people that are not like you. That's very strange, that the Cyclopses don't have that. In their in their cultural purview, they also lack and this importantly comes out with Polyphemus, they entirely lack the idea of Xenia. Remember our statement about hospitality and how important it is we see it coursing through really most of the books of the Odyssey it surely shows up in a negative way in these episodes we see people not performing the proper kind of Xenia or hospitality. The Cyclopses are really most prominent example of this. They don't understand the basic guest host relationship. Cyclops, the Polyphemus doesn't realize that he's supposed to be providing a gift to the people that arrive in his house. He doesn't know how to do it. He, he's not generous. He doesn't provide Odysseus and his men with the kind of overwhelming hospitality that a real good host is supposed to do. You might think that Odysseus and his men are a bit rude cuz they just keep you know, rummaging around on their own, looking for it and asking for it. Right in the Cyclops' face they ask for a gift that might seem a little bit forward or a little bit presumptuousness but actually Homer doesn't seem to bat an eye about it and the reason that he doesn't is because he thinks presumably that oh, this is a great hero, of course, he should be getting some gift giving, but of course he gets none. The gifts in the episode show up in interesting ways. Odysseus is repeatedly asking for one when he arrives there, hey where's my gift, I'm a guest in your house, where is my gift? Cyclops doesn't provide it, then also there's that wine that Odysseus brings from this ship as their making their way into the center of the island to look for this civilization. And they grab that and take that with them. Odysseus recalls it as a gift that he got himself, a guest gift that he got himself from a hero called Maron. Odysseus had saved his family as heroes might do sometimes Maron then gave him the gift of the wine. Odysseus is now going to use this. Later on in the episode it becomes his perverted gift to Cyclops. He says, here, why don't you have some of this wine? What it's going to do is not make the Cyclops enjoy wine, such as people do under normal circumstances, is going to utterly debilitate him so that Odysseus and his mates can do some awful things and poke out the one eye the poor cyclops has. I keep saying poor cyclops, I'm not sure why I feel sorry for him. I do, a little bit anyway. But so, they just drill this awful heated opposed into the Cyclops's eye. The thing is now blinded and utterly named having failed to give gifts to Odysseys men he gets the nasty one in return. Now, the gift giving and the laws of Xenia are consistently violently in the scene were they violated at their worst, is when the Cyclops decides not to serve food to Odysseus's men but instead to use Odysseus's men as his own food. He grabs two of Odysseus's compatriots right, when he sees them. Smashes their head against the ground and eats their brains. This is very bad manners. You're not supposed to do this kind of thing, instead a good host is supposed to feed his guest not feed on his guests. The cyclops goes ahead and does that. The worst perversion of all that one can imagine for the rules of Xenia. It's not only that the cyclops is ignoring the rules of Xenia, it's that the cyclops is actually perverting them. Turning them inside out in awful, awful ways. This brings us to universal law number three, universal law number three, pretty much held true across all of human society. All my universal law are like that. Universal law number three is, it's not good to be food. It is not good to be food. Human beings do not like the idea of becoming food for other creatures. It is a source of revulsion to us. It's so awful that it causes us to have an awful kind of disgust response. Ugh. It's not just terrifying or frightening, it's actually utterly disgusting. The violence that's involved in killing someone is here gone a further step as a ripped up human being is now chewed on, swallowed and metabolized. The full annihilation that comes through metabolism seems to be worth at the core of just how awful it is to image a human being becoming food. Then there's also the problem that reminds us that whatever living things that are out there in the world survive. It's true. By eating other living things. That's a sad thing about organic, the organic world but is indeed nearly universally true that living things survive by eating other living things. When you and I start to think of ourselves as food we place ourselves in this very broad spectrum of all of living things out there who are part of a food chain. I think that there's a part of us that likes to think of ourselves as much more special than that and not just as a member in a food chain. It makes us it's awful for us to think of ourselves as belonging to that part of what it is to be inside, of, to be a living organism as well. Now, to make his way out of this particular problem, Odysseus has this amazingly clever idea of debilitating the Cyclops rather than killing him. Killing the Cyclops they'd be stuck in the cave in the cave so he debilitates and this then gives Odysseus a means to get out of the cave. Straps himself to the bottom of the ram and has his mates strapped to the bottom of the other animals in the flock and they escape out the open door underneath these animals when Cyclops tries to check the animals to make sure nothing funny's going on about Odysseus and his men get through and get out. Not before Odysseus in a further sense of cleverness introduces another of the famous tricks in this episode when he is tormenting the Cyclops. The cyclops is asking his name. Odysseus says my name is No Man. Now this the Polyphemus being sure that the person that is having all this doing all this mischief in his own cave is named, No Man. When his neighbors come over to ask him what's wrong, Polyphemus he says to his fellows Cyclopses, "Well I'm, No Man is harming me, No Man is harming me," at which point. The fellow's not to bright. So yah, okay well one's harming you we'll just go back to our business. So they just depart and go away. Odysseus then adopts this pure anonymity, the name of no name. He, in some ways loses his name in the Cyclops episode not though quite well enough in Marx's entrance into a certain kind of anonymity, in a strange world modern about Odysseus is on his way out, like great heroes who can't stand the idea that the Cyclops might go through the rest of his life not knowing who it is that beat him. So as he and his men are escaping, Odysseus shouts back, oh, and by the way in case anyone wants to know, the one who blinded you and beat you at this competition is Odysseus. Now, when he does that Odysseus can't help but give his name so that his fame can spread and his glory can spread for having bested Polyphemus. But what he does is give Polyphemus now a means to draw down a curse on Odysseus. Odysseus would have been completely at anonymous. Had he not told Polyphemus' name, shouting out his name at the end gives him the glory of having bested Polyphemus but it now gives Polyphemus the means to call down a terrible curse on Odysseus. Without the name, Polyphemus would have been powerless to do it. The name gives him a way in, it's like his address, his special identity. Now that Polyphemus knows Odysseus's identity, he can say to his father, who just happened to be Poseidon. Sorry Odysseus, bad mistake. Just happens to be beside. Dad, take care of that awful man Odysseus, who took care of me. And when he does that Polyphemus will surely answer him and nasty things are going to come Odysseus' way. Now if we wanted to half step back and tried to think about this episode as a whole, Cyclops represents according to one of the tools we've already seen in our curse, a wonderful example of a kind of social lesson on the importance of Zenia. In the case of Polyphemus, this is the kind of reading I've been developing for you, in the case of Polyphemus, this example of Xenia is actually a perverted example. He stands as a perfect negative example of what not to do. And with this story, all the Greeks that are reading can sit back and listen to a myth that underlines and underscores the importance of proper guest treatment. The importance of properly treating a guest. Without doing that, a person is running the risk of being compared to one of these awful criminals the cyclops himself. So make sure that you uphold Xenia, you Greeks, otherwise some people might start thinking you're acting like a cyclops and, boy, that would be a horrible thing for people to think about you.